Activities for Climate Change Adaptation Chapter

Discussion: CO₂ emissions and global climate justice

The CO₂ emissions data in this exercise come from OurWorldInData.org, which uses data from the Global Carbon Project. The emissions are from fossil fuels and industry, but do not include emissions from land use change. Please note that the world's energy systems are changing very rapidly, so if you use this activity it is worthwhile to look up the latest data.

In 2017, the five countries (or groups of countries, in the case of the European Union) that emitted the most CO₂ were 1) China, 2) U.S.A., 3) the European Union, 4) India, and 5) Russia.

Per capita emissions (amount of CO₂ emitted per person) by country from 2017 have a different profile: 1) Qatar, 2) Trinidad and Tobago, 3) Curacao, 4) Kuwait, and 5) Brunei. Why might this be? Consider the population sizes of these countries and their large industries.

For countries with large populations (over 25 million people), per capita CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry are shown in the graph below and ranked as follows: 1) Saudi Arabia, 2) Australia, 3) U.S.A., 4) Canada, and 5) South Korea. China and India, two of the top 5 total emitters, had per capita emissions of 5.2 and 1.1 metric tons/person, respectively.

The countries with the lowest per capita emissions in 2017 are all in Africa, as shown in the graph below (note the change in vertical axis scale compared with the previous two graphs), and the world map below the graph. These countries are 1) Democratic Republic of Congo, 2) Somalia, 3) Central African Republic, 4) Burundi, and 5) Chad.

Putting this in perspective, per capita emissions in the U.S. are over 500 times larger than those of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Another way to look at this is that on average, an American’s release of CO₂ in a day is 0.04 metric tons (=16 metric tons/year ÷ 365 days/year). So it takes an American, on average, only one day to release the amount of CO₂ that the average Somalian releases in a year.

Finally, the rankings for cumulative emissions from 1751 to 2017 are as follows: 1) U.S.A., 2) European Union, 3) China, 4) Russia, and 5) Japan. These countries have released the most CO₂ into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Potential discussion questions:

1. Given these numbers, what are the responsibilities of different countries for taking action to adapt to and mitigate climate change?

2. Should wealthier nations such as the U.S. pay to help poorer nations adapt to climate change? If so, what is a country’s balance between spending money to protect its own people and cities and spending money to help people elsewhere?

3. Do developed countries such as the U.S. and the European Union bear greater responsibility to address climate change since the current warming comes largely from CO₂ they have emitted in the past, or is China’s responsibility greater since it is the largest emitter recently (total, not per capita)?

4. What are individuals’ responsibilities to address climate change? An interesting question to consider is one posed by philosopher Dale Jamieson (see, for example, Jamieson's book Reason in a Dark Time (Oxford University Press, 2014).) He describes a person taking a long airplane flight, which results in a large amount of carbon emissions. These carbon emissions contribute to warming which can lead to extreme weather events that kill people. One could argue then that taking airplane flights can amount to committing murder, but very few people flying on airplanes feel like they are murderers. How does our sense of morality fit with our actions that are causing climate change?